Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #260| Why the Time Management System Everyone Recommends Is Making Your Overwhelm Worse — And What To Do Instead
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: In this episode, you'll learn why the time management system that everyone recommends is making your overwhelm worse and what to do instead.
- 0:12Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:19Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:24Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:29Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:40Michelle Gauthier: Have you ever seen someone be super productive?
- 0:43Michelle Gauthier: Let's say that woman in the office next to you, and you see her with her highlighted time blocking, and you decide you're going to give it a try, or your bestie tells you about how she gets up at 5 a.m.
- 0:54Michelle Gauthier: and does this morning routine that she swears by, and you try it for like a week and give up because it just did not work for you.
- 1:01Michelle Gauthier: If that's happened to you, it doesn't mean you're lazy or undisciplined or anything is wrong with you.
- 1:07Michelle Gauthier: It's just that you're trying to use a system that doesn't work for you.
- 1:10Michelle Gauthier: Here's something that I've learned from working with lots of clients over the past eight years, and that is that there's no one size fits all time management or productivity approach.
- 1:20Michelle Gauthier: Everybody has willpower and everybody has motivation.
- 1:24Michelle Gauthier: So it's not like, oh, I just need to be more motivated.
- 1:27Michelle Gauthier: It's really about learning to understand yourself before you try to apply a system to it.
- 1:34Michelle Gauthier: So on this quick Thursday episode, we're gonna flip the script.
- 1:37Michelle Gauthier: Instead of asking what system should you use, I'm gonna help you ask yourself these three diagnostic questions that will help you understand yourself.
- 1:45Michelle Gauthier: And once you know that, you can create or modify or build a time management system that really works for you.
- 1:52Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn how much structure you actually need in your day, the times when your energy is the best throughout the day, and what actually motivates you to get things done.
- 2:04Michelle Gauthier: Let's jump into it and talk about the first question to ask yourself, which is how much structure do you actually need?
- 2:11Michelle Gauthier: I had a client named Carrie.
- 2:13Michelle Gauthier: She is a graphic designer and she really doesn't like structure.
- 2:18Michelle Gauthier: She came to me saying she doesn't like structure.
- 2:20Michelle Gauthier: She thought that structure would kill her creativity.
- 2:23Michelle Gauthier: And as we looked into it, what we found out is that she did need structure, just not the super rigid kind.
- 2:29Michelle Gauthier: She could never do time blocks for every minute of every day.
- 2:33Michelle Gauthier: She needs it to be more flowy than that.
- 2:36Michelle Gauthier: But she did need, we found out, a work start time.
- 2:39Michelle Gauthier: She owns her own business so she could start working whenever she wanted.
- 2:42Michelle Gauthier: She created a work start time for herself.
- 2:44Michelle Gauthier: And when she got to her desk, she did a quick morning routine, about 10 minutes, and she started a spreadsheet to track her projects and her income.
- 2:53Michelle Gauthier: She went from very little, maybe 10% structure, to like 20 or 30% structure.
- 2:59Michelle Gauthier: And what happened for her, and you can listen to her full story.
- 3:03Michelle Gauthier: I interviewed her in episode 10.
- 3:05Michelle Gauthier: But what happened is she doubled her income when she started putting a certain amount of structure in her day and she felt so much better about how her day was planned.
- 3:14Michelle Gauthier: If I were to answer this question about myself, how much structure do I actually need?
- 3:18Michelle Gauthier: What I would like to say is a lot of structure because I love to plan.
- 3:22Michelle Gauthier: But what I've found out is that if I plan my week in too much of a structured way, if I miss, say, a block where I'm supposed to have worked on something, it just makes me feel like I'm falling behind.
- 3:34Michelle Gauthier: And then I start ignoring that block, and it just really doesn't work for me.
- 3:38Michelle Gauthier: So I had to let go of the idea of blocking my time for every hour of every day.
- 3:43Michelle Gauthier: And I probably block about 60% of my week.
- 3:46Michelle Gauthier: I block all the times that I have clients, I block times when I have to maybe drive my kids somewhere.
- 3:51Michelle Gauthier: And then I just keep a prioritized list of what I need to work on so that when I do have that open space on my calendar, I know what to work on.
- 3:59Michelle Gauthier: And that's the level of structure that works for me.
- 4:02Michelle Gauthier: So ask yourself, what kind of structure do I actually need?
- 4:06Michelle Gauthier: The next question to ask yourself is when am I naturally the sharpest or the most energetic?
- 4:12Michelle Gauthier: There's this myth that morning people are the most productive and you have to get up at 5 a.m.
- 4:17Michelle Gauthier: to really make it in life.
- 4:19Michelle Gauthier: And I'm here to tell you that that is not true.
- 4:21Michelle Gauthier: You can do your deepest work at the time where you feel most energetic and be successful.
- 4:27Michelle Gauthier: Even if you sleep until nine o'clock every morning, that is completely fine.
- 4:31Michelle Gauthier: Just notice for yourself when are you the sharpest?
- 4:35Michelle Gauthier: I learned this from a leadership class pretty early on in my career.
- 4:39Michelle Gauthier: And what I noticed is that I would do all the stuff that I didn't want to do in the morning, which is my best energy.
- 4:46Michelle Gauthier: Like, let me just get this dumb expense report out of the way or reply back to a bunch of emails while I'm the most alert.
- 4:54Michelle Gauthier: And I realized that is a complete waste of my best energy.
- 4:57Michelle Gauthier: That's a time that I need to be doing writing and strategy and making big decisions.
- 5:02Michelle Gauthier: And everything else, like meetings and that expense report, can happen in the afternoon.
- 5:07Michelle Gauthier: And that can be a huge game changer.
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: I've had some clients who feel like they just really get cooking after lunchtime and you know it gets to be about two o'clock in the afternoon and they're full of good ideas.
- 5:18Michelle Gauthier: So what I would say is just do exactly what I said for the morning for me and put it in the afternoon for you.
- 5:23Michelle Gauthier: The key thing about asking yourself this question of when do I have the best energy during the day is just to remember that your energy pattern isn't right or wrong.
- 5:32Michelle Gauthier: It just is.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: It comes built in like the color of your eyes.
- 5:36Michelle Gauthier: There's really not a lot that you can do to influence it.
- 5:39Michelle Gauthier: So instead of trying to change it, embrace it.
- 5:42Michelle Gauthier: Embrace it and creating a time management system that can work for you.
- 5:46Michelle Gauthier: Okay, and the third and last question to ask yourself is what actually makes me show up and do things?
- 5:52Michelle Gauthier: Let's think about the example of working out.
- 5:54Michelle Gauthier: So if you want to work out, are you a person who can just decide that you're gonna work out at home by yourself five days a week and actually do it?
- 6:02Michelle Gauthier: If so, that is great to know about yourself.
- 6:05Michelle Gauthier: Or are you, like me, do you need to have someone or something external relying on you showing up before you're likely to do something?
- 6:14Michelle Gauthier: I'm not gonna work out by myself in my house five days a week.
- 6:18Michelle Gauthier: I'm just not all come up with something else to do or get busy or just forget about doing it.
- 6:23Michelle Gauthier: I need to sign up for a class and go to the gym where there will be other people there.
- 6:28Michelle Gauthier: Some people will do anything as long as they understand the why.
- 6:32Michelle Gauthier: So if there's some work project that doesn't make any sense to them, they're gonna feel super unmotivated to work on it.
- 6:38Michelle Gauthier: But once they understand the why or how it affects the big picture, they're much more likely to do it.
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: This whole concept that I'm talking about comes from a book called The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin.
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: Great book.
- 6:48Michelle Gauthier: I've also done a review on that book on this podcast, but it's really important to understand for yourself and your own time management if you want to get something done.
- 6:56Michelle Gauthier: What does it take for you to show up and work on it?
- 7:00Michelle Gauthier: Are you a person who will just do it?
- 7:02Michelle Gauthier: Do you need external accountability?
- 7:04Michelle Gauthier: Do you need to understand the why?
- 7:06Michelle Gauthier: No matter what the answer to that is, again, it's not right or wrong.
- 7:09Michelle Gauthier: It's just good to know yourself and match your tasks to the way that actually works for you.
- 7:16Michelle Gauthier: So, in summary, you don't need better discipline.
- 7:19Michelle Gauthier: You just need clarity.
- 7:20Michelle Gauthier: Clarity about how much structure you need, when your energy is the sharpest in the day, and what actually motivates you to get something done.
- 7:27Michelle Gauthier: And once you know yourself, managing your time will become a whole lot easier.
- 7:32Michelle Gauthier: If this really resonates with you, time management could be the underlying reason why you're feeling overwhelmed.
- 7:40Michelle Gauthier: Or if you're listening to this thinking, yeah, I'm pretty good at that, maybe there's something else that's causing your overwhelm.
- 7:46Michelle Gauthier: Maybe it's people pleasing, maybe it's negative self-talk.
- 7:49Michelle Gauthier: If you want to know the answer to that question, go right now and take the overwhelm quiz that is on my website.
- 7:56Michelle Gauthier: It takes two minutes and it tells you the root cause of your overwhelm and exactly what your first step should be in solving it.
- 8:03Michelle Gauthier: So instead of being stuck, you can start moving in the right direction.
- 8:07Michelle Gauthier: That link is in the show notes.
- 8:09Michelle Gauthier: Take the quiz today.
- 8:10Michelle Gauthier: All right, have a great weekend.
- 8:12Michelle Gauthier: I'll see you Monday.
- 8:13Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 8:21Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 8:27Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.